Becoming a veterinarian offers a wide variety of career options. You can be an associate veterinarian at someone else’s hospital, which has the benefit of practicing medicine in one location without worrying about the business side of running a clinic. You can stick with academia and become a research or laboratory veterinarian if you enjoy the science behind it all. Or, if you prefer to widen your scope and have a little more variety in your career, you can be a relief veterinarian and work at multiple clinics. And finally, you can start your own veterinary practice.
There are benefits to each of these choices, but there are also a lot of things to consider, especially when it comes to veterinary practice ownership. We spoke with David Murvin, co-founder of both Roo and PetWell Partners, an owner and operator of veterinary hospitals in Texas and across the country, about what to consider when buying a veterinary practice.
There is a lot of pride in ownership, but if the business side of veterinary medicine just isn’t appealing to you, perhaps a relief career is. A relief veterinarian salary can be comparable to an associate or a practice owner without any of the overhead responsibility. In fact, some relief vets even make more than the average full time vet salaries. Roo’s relief vets can take vacation whenever they want without worrying whether their business will fall apart in their absence. They can also go home at the end of the day without the worries of their practice following them there.
If nothing else, working as a relief veterinarian with Roo can give you exposure to a wide variety of hospitals so that if and when you do decide to buy a veterinary practice, you know exactly what kind of clinic you want it to be.
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark."
-Michelangelo